Environmental campaigners and small-scale fishermen will be demonstrating outside the High Court as the first day of hearings begins today, to draw attention to a landmark case which could have momentous consequences for the definition of fish as a public good and the government’s ability to ensure Britain's seas are fished sustainably.
At the heart of the dispute is the decision by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) to reallocate a small amount of consistently unused fishing quota from Fish Producer Organisations – consortia of vessel owners controlling over 95 per cent of the UK’s fishing rights – to small-scale fishermen, who have access to a tiny 4 per cent share of this resource, despite making up over three quarters of the UK’s fishing fleet. (1)
The industry heavyweights, represented by the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations (UKAFPO), have taken Defra to court over the move arguing that reallocating part of their share of fishing quota is tantamount to ‘deprivation of possessions ’ – an argument implying that they regard quota as a private asset.
Greenpeace and the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA), who have been given permission by the court to intervene in the case, will be arguing that fish is not a private commodity but a public good held in trust by the government on behalf of all citizens.
"This case is not just about shifting a bit of fishing quota from one sector of the fleet to another – it's a fight for the very soul of our seas,” says Greenpeace ocean campaigner Ariana Densham. “The industry heavyweights are effectively asking the court to rubberstamp the largest privatisation by stealth of a public good in centuries – a massive fish grab which is threatening the livelihoods of many small-scale fishermen, the largest and most sustainable part of our fleet. Greenpeace is here today to remind the fishing barons that our seas are not for sale."
Fishing quotas were introduced for the first time three decades ago by the then new EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in an attempt to regulate the exploitation of fish stocks. Each year, after EU fisheries ministers have negotiated the overall amount of fish their fleets are allowed to catch (Total Allowable Catch), member states parcel it out to their respective fleets in the form of fishing quotas.
Officially, fishing quotas have always been no more than temporary concessions to utilise a public resource, reallocated to fishermen every year. In practice, vessel owners have ended up treating quota as a private asset – buying it, selling it, renting it out to other fishermen, and even using it as collateral for bank loans (2).
"Producer organisations are a bit like quota squatters: they have been ‘occupying’ a public good for some time and now claim the government can't take it back because it’s their private property," says Densham. "But the public nature of fishing rights is enshrined in the Magna Carta itself, and the sell-off of this resource to private interests would represent a swing from public to private that would turn history on its head, ending centuries of established rights.”
Greenpeace has warned that if fishing giants were to win this case, this would severely hamper the government's ability to manage the UK's fisheries, including the implementation of key elements of the much anticipated new Common Fisheries Policy currently debated in Brussels.
"The people of this country have everything to lose from the privatisation of our seas," says Densham. "If the government can't allocate quota as it sees fit, then our minister will effectively lose the ability to manage our fisheries in the public’s interest, and our seas will be left at the mercy of unfettered market forces. The hard-won proposals to prioritise low-impact fishermen included in the new EU fisheries policy would be dead in the water."
The outcome of today’s case is bound to have a direct impact on Britain’s 4,000-plus small-scale fishermen (3), many of whom are struggling to scrape a living from the little fishing quota they have access to.
“It’s simply unacceptable that access to a public resource should be considered as just another commodity, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, irrespective of its vital social, economic and cultural importance to fishermen and the hundreds of coastal communities they support,” says Jerry Percy, chief executive to NUTFA. "This is the last chance saloon for many small scale and sustainable fishermen who will not have a future if their birth right ends up in the hands of a few big players”.
The UK's fishing quota – estimated to be worth over one billion pounds back in 1999, and now likely to be a multi-billion pound asset (4) – has been the object of growing media and public scrutiny over the last few years.
At present there is no publically available information on who holds fishing quota besides the amount which is allocated to producer organisations every year. Following media reports suggesting banks and even football clubs may have bought quota as a financial investment (5), Defra has been under pressure to publish a register of quota holders, and has indicated it intends to do so by the end of the year (6).
Findings from a Greenpeace investigation published earlier this year also revealed that a large amount of fishing quota held by members of the UK's most influential lobby body for the fishing sector – the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) – is in the hands of Spanish, Dutch, and Icelandic interests, which a damning 2009 report by Defra found to be contributing little or nothing to the UK economy (7).
Greenpeace and NUTFA are represented by Harrison Grant Solicitors instructing Kassie Smith QC of Monckton Chambers.
ENDS
A group of small-scale fishermen will hold a brief demonstration in front of the High Court building on the Strand from 9-10am today.
Notes to editors
- http://www.nutfa.org/#/fisheries-management/4543399029
- Agriculture Select Committee ‘Eight Report – Sea Fishing’ 1999 UK Parliament, para 85 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmagric/141/14108.htm
- MMO vessel list, 1st April 2013: http://www.marinemanagement.org.uk/fisheries/statistics/vessel.htm
- Agriculture Select Committee ‘Eight Report – Sea Fishing’ 1999 UK Parliament, para 83.
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13682451 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/05/fishing-quotas-privatised
- Defra’s spokesperson quoted in http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/anger_over_fish_quota_of_foreign_fleet_linked_to_lowestoft_1_1867622
- http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/wolf-shrimps-clothing
